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Embracing Creativity to Empower Life and Business · The One Small Change Podcast

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Hello everybody, welcome again to The One Small Change.
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I am so happy that you are spending time with me and that you want
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to be on this journey of exploration and transformation. I'm your
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host, Yvonne McCoy, and I bring almost 30 years of entrepreneurial
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experience, and I have a passion for discovering growth
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through the power of seemingly small change. And every
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week I try to bring you somebody new that's going to come into your world
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and help you on this journey. And this week we are talking
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with Evelyn Rysdyk and she's going to share how a
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small, unexpected, or insignificant decision
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sparked a remarkable transformation and growth in her— their
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life, both personally and professionally, and makes her really
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good at what she does, better than other people.
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Evelyn, I am so glad
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that you are giving us your time this week.
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Well, I'm delighted to be here, and we always seem to get on like a
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house on fire when we talk to one another, so that's That's good too.
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So I am delighted. Absolutely. So tell
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everybody what you do and what happened
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to bring you to that so that you're better at it than anybody else.
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Well, I work with both students,
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individuals in sessions, and that
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combination means I speak to a lot of people all
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the time. Now, the one
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thing that helps that to be smooth as
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silk is that I am an eldest child that was
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raised by a whole slew of older people. I
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grew up in a sea of white hair, and if I was very,
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very quiet, I could sit and listen to their
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stories. And They told stories
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not only of their own early days, but they would tell
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stories that they heard from their parents and grandparents. So I got
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like history lessons when I was a little girl, as well as
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leaning in to hear more than what they said,
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but how they felt about what they said. And that was
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something I just did spontaneously as a child.
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And I got a little bit older. My father ran a
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service station. He was a brilliant mechanic. And there was a bus
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stop that was right on the street next to his station.
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And of course, back in, in the Willy Wags in the old days, there
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were no shelters at the bus stop. So
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my father, who was a kind of imposing person, he was 6'7".
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Would invite people from the bus stop to wait in the office
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so that they didn't get soaked out in the rain.
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Now, the area was
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multinational, primarily back then it was European immigrants,
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but there was also a vibrant Black community there as well.
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And all of these people would come into the station
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in the office, which got pretty crowded in there. And
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I got to listen to them. And when I learned to really
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listen, I could understand even
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strongly accented speech. Because I
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just kept tuning my ear to the person that was in front of
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me. And that doesn't
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seem like something that would be, you something you'd
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learn in school or anything like that. But it has served me so
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well over my life because
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when put in front of anyone, I can listen
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and talk with them because I
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desire to connect.
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And that being curious about a person and really
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deeply listening to them is something that most people don't
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experience. I think I
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gotta say two things, okay?
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Um, sometimes when I'm teaching communication, one of the things,
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for whatever reason, I guess because we're taught— I don't know what we're taught—
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sometimes we're so busy formulating an
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answer when people talk to us
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that we don't stop to listen to find out what's going on.
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So I think that's one of the big things. And the
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second thing you said is being curious. It's like,
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don't— you know, we— again, this is, I think,
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conditioning with education and stuff. We have a
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predisposed lens that we're coming through.
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And one of the biggest changes that happened to me, one of the biggest small
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changes was saying to myself, are
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you being judgmental or are you being curious?
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You know, and I have really worked really hard the last few years to be
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curious because I'm telling you, I had Type A
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behavior and I like focused in without
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really listening. So tell me more about that, because that's kind of amazing,
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the fact that you can not only listen
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actively right? But can make that
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person be heard and seen.
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And how does that help you in business? How does that help us in our
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business? To me, that human
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connection— first of all, we're social primates, right?
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And as social primates, we
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thrive on connection. But connection can't be
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something that's fake. It has to be a genuine
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connection. And it can be with a stranger in the line in the
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bank. Or, you know, if you make a genuine connection
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with any individual, you start to see that person shine.
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They brighten up. They were seen, even for a
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short interlude. You know, you're chatting somebody up somewhere.
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Raging extrovert here. Yes, I am. And
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that connection means they might be talking to
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somebody else at their next stop. They may choose to
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step forward. I mean, I'm the kind of person that if there's
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somebody packing my groceries and they're wearing a tag, I call them by name.
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You know, that's an important piece of how we
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interact. And now when you receive a client,
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a student in one of your courses, whatever it might be,
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you have already engaged in
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relationship. Because
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you've received them as a human being, you've
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listened to what their concern is or
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their particular way of expressing whatever
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is going on that is troubling them or that they didn't understand or
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whatever it might be. You lean in for that.
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And curiosity makes us want to lean in. It's like, "Oh,
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you have a completely different story than I do. I want to hear it."
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That's the energy that you give forth when you lean in.
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And
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that way of being
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is I think more important than thinking
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about the next sale. Because if you create
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relationships, however
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narrow we'd make that definition, if you create
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relationships, you are
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automatically, when you receive somebody, you're
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automatically seen as more trustworthy.
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So this— Go ahead. Okay, so the first thing
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is, as I'm listening to what you're saying, I
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have something— I, I have something that I want to say about that. And
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I'll say it first. You know, one of the things that
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I put into my Be Found framework is nurture all your
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relationships. And I think sometimes people feel like that means you have to
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spend a whole lot of time and get into deep conversations,
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but it's not. I mean, I— my husband got a book and it was something,
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something about things that make you a better person or something like
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that. But the one that I remember of all the things is always wave back
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at a kid that waves at you, you know, because it makes
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them feel seen. It's, it's— I actually think that sometimes those
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little gestures are more important
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because
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they're spontaneous. They make the person feel
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good, and that person is probably going to have that ripple effect where
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they're going to pass it on. Yes, the big things we do are important too,
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but that's something that costs you nothing, you
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know. So, all right, I want to get back to
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you though. So the thing that we haven't really talked
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about very much is what, what is it that you do? You know, you talk
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to students, you talk to older people. What is it that you
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actually do? In your business? In
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business, I rely on what pulled me out
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of a depression when I was,
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about 36 years ago. So whatever that
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arithmetic is. I had
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lost a relationship, so I was really
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foundering, you know, crashing on the rocks. I went
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to a therapist, I had some medication to help me sleep at night, and as
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a stubborn Taurus, I was not getting well fast
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enough. Does this sound familiar? Does it sound
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familiar? Yes. I was not getting well
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fast enough. I wanted myself back. And so
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I had read a book about shamanism
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probably 2 or 3 years prior to that, and I said, "I want
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to try this." Because it was expanding your perception.
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And, you know, depression to me feels like they stuck you in the
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smallest closet they could find, you know, and there's no window.
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So I thought, "All right." I fooled around with the
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information that was in the book. And then I found that
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one of those— it was the Open Center in New York, one of those places
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where they have a huge catalog of all these different things that could improve your
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life, you know. And I found out the author of the book was
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teaching, so I signed up for that. And the first
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shamanic journey I experienced with him drumming and all of us lying on the floor,
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and it was pretty odd for me because I was in advertising at that point,
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and 150 people lying on the floor, and some of them in a lot of
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tie-dye, was a little bit edgy for me,
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I have to say. But dutifully,
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Followed the instructions, went down on the floor, had a blindfold,
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and the first journey was to— I met a polar
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bear in the journey. And the polar bear
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took me around to show me things.
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And it was like that tunnel vision of depression for me
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suddenly opened up. I felt that
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possibility came back. Not any specific
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possibility, which would have been nice to the Taurus, but
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possibility as an energy came back. And I said, I do not know
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the ins and outs of this yet. I need to learn more. And I
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also need to make sure that I'm not making this up.
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Stubborn, what can I tell you? So I
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not only practiced it, I took another one of this
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organization's courses that was to use it in a
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counseling venue.
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And I went into this with the idea,
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I want to learn how to make the drawing salve that my
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great-great-grandmother made. She never wrote the recipe down, and her
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children didn't want to learn herbal medicine, so she didn't teach them, and it
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was lost to time. But I have the kind of skin
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that decides no matter how badly infected that, that thing
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is going to be, it just heals over. And I always have to use a
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drawing salve. And my parents used what was left in
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this old mason jar when I was a kid, but that was gone
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and I still had the same skin. So I wanted to
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find out how to make that salve. I said, that's a concrete thing.
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If I can find that out, then I know I'm not making it up.
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So over the course of this week-long training, I
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asked to meet— I have the polar bear take me to meet my great-great-grandmother, who
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is long dead, died before I was born. And I
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said, I know there's a 3-generation gap between us.
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I want to know how to make your drawing sap.
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And so over the course of this program, she showed me the way
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somebody would have taught you a recipe in the '30s. You know, you need this
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much of this. And this much of this and about this much of this.
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Right? So I'm busy writing it all down. I finally
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gather all the ingredients. The base of it was goose fat and it was
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summertime. So finding a goose to roast in summer, I had to wait
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just until autumn before I could roast the goose. I
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made it and, you know, you don't know what it's going to be.
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Filtered it, put it in the little jars. And
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then I thought, I have to try it, right? So I have
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a cat, as you noticed today, and I always
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have had cats, and I roughhouse with them, and I always get scratched.
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So I aggravated a cat scratch until it was roaringly
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infected, and then I followed what my parents did.
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They put it on a gauze pad back then with adhesive tape, put it on
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there with the salve, In the morning, all the goop would be in the bandage
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and the wound would be clean. So it was like, in the morning,
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it was like,
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holy crap, it worked.
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And that idea that you could
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expand your awareness to include things that you thought were
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completely impossible.
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That idea supported my
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desire to be curious about
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people and support them to step into
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the fullest life they're capable of
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having. You know, most people sort of play small.
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Even people in business tend to, you know, they get a little alley there that
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they're in and that's it. But I don't think we were
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designed that way. I think we were designed to really
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be all that we are capable of being
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as individuals. And in that
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largesse part of us,
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we can make a difference around us
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by just being who we are. You know, we can
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We can funnel that into teaching, we can funnel that into
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having clients that you support in their healing, or
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teaching courses. All these different things that you can do,
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but your being is the thing that people respond
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to. That quality that
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you can be big enough to support
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them to step into that same kind of space.
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And it's the kind of thing that even talking about it gives me goosebumps.
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Because when people really let themselves be
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that bigness that they may have been afraid of when they were younger,
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or told to, you know, stay in your lane by
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parents that said, mm-mm, don't you be getting bigger than me.
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When they're set free from that, There's no
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end to the wonderful things that they can do.
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And I absolutely agree with you, and I kind of come from it
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from the opposite— same place, opposite direction,
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if that makes any sense. And I think that when we are
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young, we are fearless, we are bold, we know no boundaries.
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And our parents, because they love us and they're scared for
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us frankly, rein us in.
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And I feel like in your adulthood,
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you have to learn to break those bounds, and that's
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what makes you who you are. That is the specialness
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that you have, that you've always had but been afraid or
17:08
conditioned out of. And I think that
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that is doubly true for women I mean, I think
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that, you know, I've said this before, if
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you listen to my podcast, I used to whistle all the time. I used to
17:23
whistle and I used to hum. And my grandmother said to me, a
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crowing hen and a whistling woman, neither one comes to a very
17:31
good end, you know. And they're like, stop whistling, stop humming. I
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mean, I can't tell you how many times I did things and they're like,
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no, we don't do that. Women, you know, don't do that.
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You know, the expectations of what a good mother is
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or expectations of what a good daughter is,
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I think, put so many, so many
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boundaries on us, right? So
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there's one other thing that you said that I think is really important.
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You said you came out of, you know,
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advertising, right? I am a very
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logical, analytical, straight arrow kind of person.
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And so getting into the woo-woo has always been something
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that I've resisted. Now, I won't say that, I— because
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that's not true anymore. Um, what I will say is I used to
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resist it. And what I would encourage people
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to do is to stick their toe
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and be curious. I mean, I actually had a conversation
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with somebody the other day who just said You know,
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I think that, you know, you have a tightness in your left side and when
18:46
you turn your head, you know, just from a Zoom call.
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And he's like, turn your head to the right, turn your head to the left,
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right? And he said, just do this thing. And he had me rub my
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ears 3 times, right up and back. And my left
19:01
shoulder got looser. Right now,
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there's a part of me that goes, all right, probably 75%
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of the people in the world are right-handed, so their left side is probably
19:12
tight, right? And, you know, this could be a guessing thing
19:16
that he just, you know, one of those things, right? But it
19:19
worked. Okay. And so the
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idea to me is so many things that I—
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what I learned as a kid was that it was not okay to fail,
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you know. And so I didn't try things that I didn't think I could
19:36
succeed at. And what I would say to you is I
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don't think there is such a thing as failure if you learn from it.
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When, when I was losing weight and I weighed— at
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one point I weighed 440 pounds. I lost almost 200
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pounds. Right. I would say to myself,
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it doesn't matter how many times you fall down. It only matters how
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many times you get up and how fast. And that, I
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think, is the same thing in business. Try something that you've never
20:06
tried before because you may rediscover
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that it's something that you love and you're really good at. And
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for me, one of the things, one of my— I consider a unique
20:18
power is I see things differently than other people. If
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I talk to you for a few minutes, I
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get a fairly good idea, I think, about what your unique power is
20:30
that you're not seeing. And I used to really
20:34
question that. And now I'm just like, that's your gift.
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It's intuitive. Just let it go. Don't try to analyze it.
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Just let it happen. And it took a long time for me to let that
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go. I mean, to like stop trying to put it in a
20:48
formula so that I could, you know, that kind of thing. So
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talk about any of that, but talk about, I think, one,
20:56
about the, the extra
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constraints I think that are put on women And for those of
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us that are always trying to get it right or being, you know,
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you know, do it by the numbers, the benefits
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of stepping into the unknown.
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That's a big question, but I will do my best here.
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So, and I love it. So
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we are all wired for being creative,
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and the only reason people don't express it is somebody else
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made better pictures in kindergarten than they did, and so they stopped.
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And that, that is a huge
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loss for, I think, as us as a
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species, because that
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desire to make something that is
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not yet here,
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that you have a feeling about it. You
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want to somehow make this thing, you know, and it could be
22:06
you're a mad crocheter or knitter, or, you know, you make
22:09
collage, you play music, it doesn't matter.
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That idea that you are making something that was not here
22:17
before. I think is
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a really important part of being a
22:25
whole human. Now you can be making a business too, that's certainly
22:28
creative. But that idea of
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it's not there on the landscape until it comes through
22:36
you and is then now
22:40
something someone else can see it. There's something really,
22:43
really profound about that. And when
22:48
we support people to, you know, crack the
22:51
box a little bit, peek out from that, peek out from the
22:55
closet, then they start to think
22:58
about possibility in the same way
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I did when I started to come out of that depression, where I felt
23:06
that sense of possibility. Because if you have the
23:10
courage, then when you open up that little closet,
23:14
to actually step through and, you know, I've always wanted to write,
23:18
or yeah, I love taking pictures, or whatever it might
23:22
be. Do it. Make something
23:26
tangible that you know wasn't there before,
23:31
because there's something powerful in that act.
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And, you know, millennia, many millennia ago, it's how we
23:39
survived. You know, we roamed all around the planet going
23:42
from one biozone to another where we didn't know what was okay to eat, where
23:46
the fresh water was, what plants were good for medicine, and what was
23:50
there to eat us. We didn't know.
23:54
So we had to be creative. We
23:58
had to be spontaneous in our creativity quite often.
24:02
And that's in us. And when we
24:06
come from that place of a sense of wonder or curiosity,
24:11
and we allow ourselves, we give ourselves permission, particularly
24:14
women, since we are the ones that we have so much cultural
24:18
burden that we have had placed on us. Luckily,
24:22
I was my father's assistant when he fixed cars in the driveway.
24:26
So I didn't get so much of that. But that
24:29
idea, that if you shed
24:33
some of that stuff that was never yours to begin with, and
24:37
then look for a way to manifest something that was
24:41
never there, that you can say, "I did
24:45
that, and I liked doing it, and
24:49
I'm going to try something. I see where maybe I
24:52
could have made this a little differently. I'm going to try something else."
24:57
I mean, that, that is like a fire going off inside of you.
25:00
That is confidence. Yes. Building your, your confidence.
25:05
I can't believe this, but the time has gone so quickly. We need to
25:09
tie up some loose ends. All right. So
25:13
talk to me about a couple of things that people can do
25:16
right away to grow their business
25:20
with the things that we've been talking about, your uniqueness,
25:23
creativity, whatever. And also
25:27
your gift, of course. Yeah.
25:30
And, uh, the, the— I would say
25:35
if you're working with other people, the first thing you
25:39
do is you sweep your mind of all your preconceived notions
25:43
and approach them tomorrow,
25:47
or today if you're still working, approach them as
25:51
people that you don't know very much about.
25:55
And you really— I think I'd like to get to know that person better.
26:00
And put that hat on and see
26:04
what you can learn when you engage with that
26:06
person and where you
26:10
feel that connection in your body. Because many women
26:15
feel things in their body. It's— yes, they also have good
26:19
noodles up here, But we have this other rest of us
26:23
that picks up cues. So pay attention to how you feel
26:27
when you do that. And notice, did that go
26:31
smoothly? Did it not go smoothly? Make it a playful act.
26:36
Make it a playful act. Because you are
26:40
creating an energy in that moment when you reach
26:43
for someone. For the one you haven't connected with
26:47
inside. You are creating an energy.
26:51
You are creating a potential relationship that wasn't there
26:55
before, even though you may have worked with them for 10 years.
27:00
And the same goes with your customers, your students, the,
27:04
the— if you do individual sessions as a coach with the people you coach,
27:10
throw away your preconceptions. They will trust you faster.
27:14
Absolutely. They will trust you faster. So tell us
27:18
about your gift before we run out of time.
27:21
Um, I have put out several
27:25
gifts, and would you remind me of which gift you— I
27:28
gave you in your community?
27:32
Well, I would think that you would want the gift that has
27:36
to do with being yourself. Building Trust and Confidence.
27:40
Anything that you've got that's in that realm would be a good gift.
27:44
And if you, if you're, if you're not sure, I'll just say
27:47
it's in the links. And when you get, you know, by the time you hear
27:50
this, it'll be there. Um, I have to just, just add real
27:54
fast, when people get upset with me because if I, when I do connection
27:58
calls, I never really look people up on LinkedIn or anything like that.
28:02
I just, I just want to meet them the way they, they come. Anyway,
28:06
so much for that. Well, you know, we have to do the advertisement part.
28:10
And so I want to encourage everybody to subscribe and share
28:14
and engage with the podcast on social media. And the reason I
28:17
do it is it's my way of giving back to the community and introducing you
28:21
to people that will help you grow your business. And I'm hoping that
28:25
that will make this a vibrant community and it will fuel your quest for
28:29
growth and impact. And I hope that you will continue to join me on The
28:32
One Small Change. And there are several episodes where I am
28:36
talking all by myself that you might want to look at. So Evelyn,
28:40
give me your last words of wisdom, like a favorite quote that you say to
28:43
your clients or a favorite saying that you've got, your last
28:47
words you want us to remember you by.
28:51
Well, I often tell people, you are far more
28:55
than you've been taught. I like
28:59
that. I like that a lot. Okay guys, it's
29:03
time for us to wrap it up and As much fun as this has
29:07
been, we got to go. So remember,
29:10
change is simple, but it's not always easy, and it requires a
29:14
certain amount of courage, resilience, and willingness to step out of
29:18
your comfort zone, which doesn't mean that you're not going to have butterflies. I
29:21
always say if I'm not feeling a little bit nervous, then I don't care.
29:25
So, you know, you're not going to necessarily feel
29:29
calm, but it will be worth taking the step. And as
29:33
Evelyn said, You know, you are meant to be
29:37
more. So join me on the one small change as we embark on this
29:40
journey. Until the next time, stay very, very
29:44
curious. Evelyn, thank you. Oh, thank
29:48
you, Yvonne. Bye, everybody.